Columbus Sales for Indiana

For many consumers, before winter hits, Arvin heater-fan combos are a sought-after item on shelves. But few know that Arvin built so much more than heaters before becoming a major supplier to the automotive industry. Their incredible diversity produced the automatic coffee percolator, AM/FM portable radios, outdoor barbecue grills, room humidifiers, component stereo systems, catalytic converters, heat exchangers for fireplaces, and televisions, to name a few.

Bartholomew County, Indiana, native Q.G. Noblitt and his friend Frank Sparks co-founded the Indianapolis Air Pump Co. in 1919, which would become Arvin Industries in 1950. The company sold air pumps to repair flat tires. In 1927, the company changed its name to Noblitt-Sparks and would move its corporate headquarters to Columbus four years later. 1919 was also the same year that Clessie Cummins launched the Cummins Engine Company in Columbus, which would later play a significant role in Arvin's revival.

Arvin Industries assumed a global role, becoming a Fortune 500 company. It was named the "Hoosier Company of the Year" in 1978. However, Arvin’s ties to the community would start to unravel by 2000 when they merged with Troy, Michigan-based Meritor Automotive Inc., creating the eleventh largest supplier of automotive systems and parts in the world. But Arvin lost its focus within the merger. The company sold the former Arvin headquarters, the Q.G. Noblitt building, to Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. in 2006. In 2011, ArvinMeritor changed its name to simply Meritor Inc., eliminating the last remnant of the former Columbus-based automotive supplier. Cummins Inc. acquired Meritor Inc. in 2022, reviving Arvin Industries, which was once a household name in southern Indiana.

Note: Arvin Industries, Inc. began produced its own television sets. An example is the 1950 Arvin model 2216CCM TV with built-in phonograph player, above.

Charles Wysocki, Part Two

Charles Wysocki (1924-2002) was famously known for his clean, well-designed American folk art illustrations, a subject I focused on in a previous post. Lesser known is his commercial advertising illustrations for Dodge trucks, among other industries. One can see leanings toward his non-dimensional, flat panels approach.

Stopping An Enormous School Bus

 

A bus full of children as signals flash for an approaching train. The 1959 illustration was for the Standard Pressed Steel Company, founded in 1903 by Howard T. Hallowell and Harald F. Gade, a Norwegian engineer. Headquartered today in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania, and known as SPS Technologies, Inc., it is a leading international company producing both stock and specialty fasteners and fastening systems. For airplanes, helicopters, and satellites, SPS designs and manufactures instrument and distribution panels, armament controls, turbine lockplates, and other items. They manufacture components for the automotive, aerospace, industrial sectors, and according to the illustration, oversized school buses stopped way too close to the tracks.